British Gymnastics have announced the team for the European Artistic Gymnastics Championships, which start in Birmingham today after a day's delay because of the disruption caused by the volcanco errupting in Iceland, and I have been selected to represent Team GB.

I will be performing alongside fellow Huntingdon gymnast Louis Smith, Kristian Thomas, Daniel Purvis, Sam Hunter and Ruslan Pantelemonov.

So far 2010 has been a really good year with some confident results coming from competitions such as the London Open and the Tyson American Cup, but the preparations have been tough.

Having trained hard in Mexico for the European Championships the whole team is hopeful to get a place on the podium for the first time as a team at a major championship.

After my recent success at the London Open I am feeling confident. The British Team Championships also went well despite me dislocating two fingers in training before hand; putting my position within the team at risk. 

At the British Team Championships "Team Huntingdon" were again favourites to defend the title. We have won for the last three years and were really looking forward to making it a fourth. The Championships were also the final qualifier for selection onto the European team, so it was important to perform well.

The team has worked really hard to prepare for the championships, with all day sessions perfecting our routines; we were keen to retain our title as the number one British team. But in the end it just wasn’t enough.  Despite some strong performances on the apparatus, South Essex beat us to the top spot leaving Huntingdon in a respectable second place, ahead of Hinckley who had a very strong team.

So now it’s all about the Europeans. The selected gymnasts for Team GB are training really hard to perform the best they can and everyone is I am really looking forward to competing on home ground.

Daniel Keatings, who is powered by Opus Energy, made history last October when he became the first British gymnast to win a medal in the All-Around event at the World Gymnastics Championships. To find out more about his sponsorship deal with Opus Energy click here.